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What's up, guys?
It's your girl, Ti, and I am here today with Aaron Koblin, the founder of Within.
>> Yeah, so Within is an immersive storytelling company,
co-founded with a guy name Chris Milk and myself.
Basically, it's an app that you can open up and
drop into immersive stories on your phone, in Oculus Rift, or HTC Vibe.
And get lost in these stories.
>> Today, Aaron and I are going to go through various movies over
the years that have portrayed VR and VR storytelling.
And see what the movies got right and what they definitely didn't get right.
And we're also going to talk a little bit about where VR is going in the future.
>> He is the one.
>> The Matrix, that was a huge movie in terms of VR and
sort of alternate realities, and in The Matrix, we see Neo literally plug in.
Is it possible within virtual reality to actually learn things as quickly as these
characters do in the movies?
>> You will learn things, and you will learn them quickly.
It's not going to be like a neuro dump, where you can just get skills and
it's magic.
There's a thing called neuroplasticity.
Where we're actually rewiring the way their brains are working based off
different types of stimulus that come in.
So there are things that you can quite remarkably and
quickly change about yourself.
So I don't think you're going to necessarily become a ninja overnight.
But this ability to experience things is so
different from being just a normal human, it's totally real.
>> How about super powers?
With Neo sort of bending The Matrix, and things like that,
how realistic is that from a programming standpoint?
>> I mean, you can already see things in virtual reality today that allow you to do
things like that, like you can fly, that's no problem.
Things that are more interesting, I think are like bending time.
You can actually control the playback of physics and other things.
I think you see that in the film, that's totally real and can be done today.
>> So evidently we can basically be super heroes in VR.
>> Yeah, I think that's fair to say.
>> This isn't real.
>> What is real?
>> Is it possible to have graphics and images so real that it's kind of
impossible to discern between reality and virtual reality?
>> There's different ways to create virtual reality.
There are things like photogrammetry, where you're scanning real life scenes and
then you're piecing them back together.
That ends up looking quite real.
I think in the future, we're going to see both kind of mixed reality.
Where you actually have just your normal environment augmented with things that
look incredibly real and maybe confusing.
That's going to lead to some pretty interesting scenarios and questions.
I think in the not so distant future,
you may actually question whether you saw something that was real or not.
>> Wow.
>> Whoa.
>> Black Mirror delves a whole lot into VR, and
the possibilities of an often dystopian future.
In the Play Test episode, their devices are actually pretty small,
they're pretty minimal.
There is also augmented reality in that particular episode.
How much does the augmented reality in that episode relate to how it is today?
>> So what you are starting to see with augmented reality is pretty similar of
what you see there.
They show actually a low polygon character sprout out of a table.
That's really similar with some of the experiments
you see in some of the things we've done.
>> In the episode,
we also see that it's basically like horror mixed with virtual reality.
It's very immersive, very scary.
Is that something we're actually seeing in VR options that are available today?
>> Yeah, I mean,
there are a bunch of people playing around with various forms of creating intrigue.
And even horror in virtual reality and augmented reality.
>> You don't want anything that's too scary.
>> Well, you are kind of handing your consciousness over, which is a pretty,
you want to have trust with whoever you are giving it to.
>> Also, there is the realism aspect of this episode,
where he can grab onto people and actually feel like they are there.
>> Yeah, there are a bunch of interfaces that are coming out.
Obviously, your controller kinds of interactions, but there's also gloves and
even hand tracking.
There's a company called Leap Motion,
which analyzes the way that your hands are moving.
>> Let's move along to the Sand June Apparo episode.
Where we see elderly people able to relive their youth, or their younger days,
through virtual reality.
Is it or will it be possible to build a world like this?
>> We're starting to have different techniques for capturing our reality.
I actually know a couple who filmed their wedding in 360 degree video.
So, to that extent, they will be able to go back and
at least from that vantage point, kind of relive what it was like to be there.
There's other technologies, like photogrammetry,
which will allow us to scan scenes, and also, eventually scan people.
There's also a company called Lytro, which does light field capture.
And that's the ability to actually capture full light field areas and
then move around in that space as though you are actually there.
So, we may not be as far off as we think, from being able to actually capture
reality in a way that we can be present in again.
>> Since we are dealing with the elderly in this episode, and
a lot of people who are quite ill.
Are there any applications for VR in healthcare today?
>> Virtual reality can be really valuable to people who have limited mobility and
accessability.
We've done some projects with hospitals.
Where we actually are able to take kids who are stuck in hospital rooms and
put them somewhere else for awhile.
And that really has a proven effect on the mind and on the presence, which can be,
a suggestion is that it can actually help real healing.
>> Wow.
Therapeutic VR, who knew?
Well, I mean, I guess you did, but I certainly didn't.
The Lawnmower Man,
now this is something that a lot of you youngsters might not have seen.
But, in it, a man becomes more and more powerful,
basically, all powerful, after spending a ton of time in virtual reality.
Lawnmower Man gets truly immersive with its VR.
>> There are two different interfaces.
One of them they're just sitting in a chair, learning back, flying through.
And that actually probably would make you sick,
because your vestibular system is expecting you to feel that motion.
And if you don't, the primal you is saying, I must have eaten poison berries,
I've got to puke.
There's another interface, though, where they have them moving around and
going like this when they're flying.
And that actually probably would work pretty well,
because your body feels that motion as you're flying and accepts it as real.
>> How interesting.
You kind of need to add the motion to prevent the motion sickness.
>> Come on, let me in.
>> Access granted.
>> So there have been many movies over the years that have talked about VR and
tried to portray it.
But I wanted to know from you, as an actual guy in the VR world,
what is your favorite VR movie?
>> The first one that comes to mind as a great portrayal is Her.
Where you have this argumentary reality scene, a guy's sitting there, and
this wonderfully sarcastic rude character is just talking smack.
And you can just see how that type of environment could really suck you in.
And you could build a relationship with a creature or
another person in that context.
>> That is going to do it for us today.
Thank you so much for joining us, but tell us where people can keep up with you or
even with Within.
Yeah, check out Within online at With.In, I'm @aaronkoblin,
thanks a lot for having me.
>> There you go.
Make sure you guys subscribe and follow us on all of our social media as well, so
that you don't miss our next episode.
And we will see you guys next time.
Bye bye.
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